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Eric Wesoff: July 31, 2009, 12:04 AM

SolarTech Aims for 3GW of PV in California by 2017

Most solar conferences are powerpoint marathons, interrupted by coffee breaks and low-grade lunch food.

SolarTech forums don't settle for that.  Except for maybe the food part.

These are not high-tech meetings with deep dives into Tellurium supplies – they are nitty-gritty forums for installers, utilities, and regulators to figure out how to bust through the roadblocks that prevent residential solar in the U.S. reaching wider and faster deployment (see California's Top Solar Cities).

SolarTech's charter is to effect change in the solar installation process – and the organization wants concrete results.  

One of its stated goals is a 50 percent decrease in interconnection cycle time by 2012.
Another long-term aim of the SolarTech team is to define a plan to get to 3 gigawatts of PV by 2017.

Doug Payne, the driven Executive Director of SolarTech defines the critical aspects of interconnection as "The point from final system inspection to grid connection, and the point when customers start getting the benefits of net metering. Even more compelling - it increases consistency, transparency, and predictability from initial permit submittal requirements, to project inspection, to the final interconnection steps".


Some of the process changes that SolarTech is working on:

  • Online applications and tools (shared, automated, with FAQs)
  • Streamlining the application process (permitting process, fees, consistency, communications and usage info)
  • Simplified meters (real-time delivery)

Peter Rive, the Co-Founder and COO of SolarCity had some good comments:

  • "You don't get your margin until the interconnection and the rebate is provided.  We will do anything to reduce that cycle time.  The working capital requirements when you scale this are enormous.  The industry is motivated and ready to invest time and effort to reduce cycle time."
  • "You have to think of solar as a consumer product – and it's a freaking annoying product – you have to be home six or seven times during the course of the installation. It's more annoying than buying a house." (Both the Rive siblings are prone to cursing in public fora.)

But who owns this process?  How does the solar industry implement these changes?

"The California Public Utilities Commission needs to own the process" according to a CEO I spoke with. He didn't want attribution so as not to anger the CPUC.

‹ Older | San Francisco, U.N. Plan Greentech Incubator, CalCEF Wants to Help General Fusion Touts Technology, But Deadline Pushes Out to Future | Newer ›

Comments

  • rooferguy 07/31/09 12:32 PM

    Sounds like Solartech is doing a good job.  But in spite of all these well-intentioned efforts, the paperwork and bureaucracy has INCREASED quite substantially over the past ten years.  Incumbent energy providers (utilities) are doing their best to increase the paperwork burden, time and costs.  They’re just protecting their revenue streams.  Asking the PUC to reduce the paperwork is like asking the fox to return the keys to the henhouse.

    When solar is truly a consumer product, like buying kitchen cabinets at a hardware store, then all of these paperwork costs will go away because people won’t bother.  Until then we need to keep trying to reduce the bureaucratic burden but realize that it is an uphill struggle because the regulatory agencies are too conflicted.

    It’s totally bizarre, but we are very quickly getting to the point in the industry where the cost of the paperwork exceeds the incentive that you get from the paperwork.  So customers are going to say “why bother” with the paperwork and will have a contractor install the solar system independently — or the customer is just going to go the Do It Yourself route (with help from Home Depot).

     Reply
      • Steve Pluvia 07/31/09 12:50 PM

        I see you stating this several places, and I agree the ultimate market will be panels with attached microinverters sold wholesale to the public via home depot type outlets, but…. it will be hard to hook up that PV system to your meter if you don’t get any paperwork done…  Paperwork is here to stay, simplifying and consumer cost reduction is a great priority.
  • Eric Wesoff 07/31/09 1:18 PM

    I admit to agreeing with Pluvia.  That’s actually happened a lot lately.  Strange.  Anyway - paperwork is here to stay, but SolarTech is making a real effort to simplify the process - getting it on line and making it consistent. 

    According to Barry Cinnamon, the CEO of Akeena Solar, the bureaucracy surrounding residential solar installations has gotten worse, not better, over the years with more forms and more hoops to jump through.  Hopefully SolarTech and the installer, utility, and regulatory community can make some positive changes.

     Reply
  • Eric Wesoff 07/31/09 1:21 PM

    Also - I like the microinverter architecture for PV and can envision consumer PV - but as long as this stuff is grid tied - there’s going to be paperwork and bureaucracy.

     Reply
  • rooferguy 07/31/09 1:43 PM

    I agree that paperwork is here to stay — but the real need for this paperwork will diminish as systems get simpler.  There are already thousands of off-grid systems that have been installed without paperwork even though the complexity of those systems is daunting.  In Germany they only have a two page feed-in tariff form – takes 5 minutes to fill out (no utility form, no building dept. form, no inspection form, no energy audit form, no shading form, etc.)

    It’s truly not hard to connect a plug and play AC system.  All you need is an electrician to install a 15 amp 240vac breaker and plug socket, and then a 3kw system can be plugged right in.  Remember, most houses already have two of these dedicated connections, one for the electric dryer and one for the electric range (it’s the funny looking three prong or four prong socket).  Any electrician can install one for about $250 – and you generally don’t need a permit since it’s a very small job.  The plug and play solar would just literally plug into that socket — and it would be fully National Electric Code compliant.  Of course, the utility and building department will want you to get a permit, but with simplified system designs there is no safety reason for it.

    In the mean time the utilities will fight rooftop solar since they’d rather install centralized systems and charge customers retail rates for the power.  We’ll all have fun over the next few years watching how this paperwork and bureaucracy battle unfolds.  Guys like me are all for lower cost installed systems, and if Home Depot retail sales provide a way to detour around the paperwork completely we’ll see a much larger industry.  Until then we’ll continue to cross our eyes and dot our tees (with caulk) as we fill out all the NJCEP and NYSERDA and utility and permitting forms.

     Reply
  • rooferguy 07/31/09 1:45 PM

    I agree that paperwork is here to stay — but the real need for this paperwork will diminish as systems get simpler.  There are already thousands of off-grid systems that have been installed without paperwork even though the complexity of those systems is daunting.  In Germany they only have a two page feed-in tariff form – takes 5 minutes to fill out (no utility form, no building dept. form, no inspection form, no energy audit form, no shading form, etc.)

    It’s truly not hard to connect a plug and play AC system (we’ve actually gotten a shipment of Andalay from Akeena).  All you need is an electrician to install a 15 amp 240vac breaker and plug socket, and then a 3kw system can be plugged right in.  Remember, most houses already have two of these dedicated connections, one for the electric dryer and one for the electric range (it’s the funny looking three prong or four prong socket).  Any electrician can install one for about $250 – and you generally don’t need a permit since it’s a very small job.  The plug and play solar would just literally plug into that socket — and it would be fully National Electric Code compliant.  Of course, the utility and building department will want you to get a permit, but with simplified system designs there is no safety reason for it.

    In the mean time the utilities will fight rooftop solar since they’d rather install centralized systems and charge customers retail rates for the power.  We’ll all have fun over the next few years watching how this paperwork and bureaucracy battle unfolds.  Guys like me are all for lower cost installed systems, and if Home Depot retail sales provide a way to detour around the paperwork completely we’ll see a much larger industry.  Until then we’ll continue to cross our eyes and dot our tees (with caulk) as we fill out all the NJCEP and NYSERDA and utility and permitting forms.

     Reply
  • Randy Zechman 08/4/09 12:15 AM

    Please visit our website at http://www.cleansolar.com to learn how our company is contributing to this effort by being a leading solar installer in the Bay area.  Clean Solar is one of the top solar installers serving the Bay area.  In fact, we have been recognized as a “Top 10” solar contractor for Northern California by The Prime Buyer’s Report.

     Reply
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